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Andy Bey Takes It Slow

By

Larry Blumenfeld

Aug. 14, 2013 3:27 p.m. ET

'The World According to Andy Bey" (High Note) begins with the singer-pianist easing into the Rodgers and Hart standard "It Never Entered My Mind" at the daringly slow tempo he's favored for more than a decade. Mr. Bey's deep voice sounds smooth yet unpolished. Here, his piano playing—always spare, never rote—consists mostly of broken chords that punctuate his sung phrases as naturally as inhalations. The song itself seems elongated, stretched beyond meter by meaning, in this case the loneliness of longing:...